When I worked on California, there were TONS of foreign workers in engineering. That was during the 90's when times were better. I don't now if they were sponsored or not, not do I have any clue if there were other special considerations. If I thought I'd ever be asked, I would have found out when I had the chance. Good luck!

When I worked on California, there were TONS of foreign workers in engineering. That was during the 90's when times were better. I don't now if they were sponsored or not, not do I have any clue if there were other special considerations. If I thought I'd ever be asked, I would have found out when I had the chance. Good luck!

A lot of US companies who have locations abroad are faced with a decision:
1. Hire American engineers, train them in the way the company does business and what they expect, then move them to the overseas location to work, and pay them what an American expat expects to be paid as an expat (a lot).
2. Hire an Engineer from the overseas country and hope they conduct themselves according to the way the company does business and delivers what they expect (not likely) or send an expat there to train them (costly).
3. Hire an Engineer from the overseas country, move them to America, and pay them peanuts compared to what an American expat would expect to be paid, train them in America for a couple of years in the way the company does business and what they expect, and them move them back to the overseas country and continue to pay them peanuts compared to what an American expat would expect to be paid, but a salary which is still much more than the overseas employee could hope to earn otherwise (happy employee).

They often choose option 3. So it's likely you could land a temporary job here and a high paying job back home.

Also, a lot of companies will source engineers from foreign companies for permanent work in the US, since foreigners from most countries are willing to work for peanuts compared to what American engineers expect to be paid to work domestically (not a lot). This multi-beneficial for the company: 1. (immediate) they get an engineer for a lot less than a domestically-sourced employee. 2. (less immediate) They drive the value of engineering work down to the point where American engineers are forced to accept a much lower wage that they would expect without this artificially stimulated under-value on engineering skill. 3. (bonus) they get to fly the flag of "diversity" and boast to investors and the world about how they are a multinational/multidiverse company who employs X% of Africans, y% of Koreans, etc.

So if it's permanent employment in US that you seek, yes, you should be able to find that too. I recommend Schlumberger; they love to hire foreign engineers and I believe they operations in Korea.

One commercial bank ran into a lot of flack and pushback from the public and their customers because they were laying off their local IT experts. The last task of the soon to be laid off experts was to train offshore/outsourced temporary workers who would replace them on contract.

I left California almost two decades ago. Since then, I cannot say that I've been immersed in that kind of community. Heck, I'm having trouble finding work for myself right now. All I can tell you is do your research. There are lots of regulations that apply.